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CENSUS 2010: ASSESSING THE BUREAU’S STRATEGY FOR REDUCING THE UNDERCOUNT OF

HARD-TO-COUNT POPULATIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 23, 2009

Serial No. 111–55

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

——— ———

——— ———

——— ———

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

DIANE E. WATSON, California

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

DARRYL PIGGEE, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 23, 2009 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Mesenbourg, Thomas L., Acting Director, U.S. Bureau of the Census;

Robert Goldenkoff, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Stacey Cumberbatch, city census coordinator, city

of New York; and Jeff Tarakajian, executive vice president, DraftFCB .. 15

Cumberbatch, Stacey ................................................................................ 66

Goldenkoff, Robert ..................................................................................... 23

Mesenbourg, Thomas L. ............................................................................ 15

Tarakajian, Jeff ......................................................................................... 42

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Missouri:

Chart on mail response rates ................................................................... 75

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Cumberbatch, Stacey, city census coordinator, city of New York, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 68

Goldenkoff, Robert, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ........................................................... 25

McHenry, Hon. Patrick T., a Representative in Congress from the State

of North Carolina, prepared statement of ................................................... 7

Mesenbourg, Thomas L., Acting Director, U.S. Bureau of the Census,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 17

Tarakajian, Jeff, executive vice president, DraftFCB, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 44

Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California:

Chart on response rates ............................................................................ 88

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 10

(1)

CENSUS 2010: ASSESSING THE BUREAU’S

STRATEGY FOR REDUCING THE

UNDERCOUNT OF HARD-TO-COUNT POPULATIONS

MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND

NATIONAL ARCHIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Clay, Norton, Watson, McHenry, and

Chaffetz.

Staff present: Darryl Piggee, staff director/counsel; Jean Gosa,

clerk; Michelle Mitchell and Alissa Bonner, professional staff members; Charisma Williams, staff assistant; Leneal Scott, IT specialist; Kellie Shelton, intern; John Cuaderes, minority deputy staff director; Dan Blankenburg, minority director of outreach and senior

advisor; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member liaison;

Chapin Fay, minority counsel; and John Ohly, minority professional staff member.

Mr. CLAY. The Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee will come to order. Let me welcome you to today’s hearing entitled, ‘‘Census 2010: Assessing the Bureau’s Strategy for Reducing the Undercount of Hard-to-Count Populations.’’

This hearing is a followup to the subcommittee’s July 2008 hearing on the ‘‘2010 Census Integrated Communications Campaign.’’

We have with us today invited distinguished colleagues who have

asked to participate in this hearing, they will be here shortly. I will

ask unanimous consent that they be allowed to participate.

Without objection, the chairman and ranking minority member

will have 5 minutes to make opening statements followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who

seeks recognition. Without objection, Members and witnesses may

have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous

materials for the record.

I will begin with an opening statement. The purpose of today’s

hearing is to examine the Census Bureau’s strategies for two aspects of the Integrated Communications Campaign. One, the Partnership Program and paid advertising. We seek answers to the

questions of, one, how will the communications plan decrease the

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undercount and increase the mail response rate of hard-to-count

communities. Two, whether the campaign messaging will generate

community support for the census. We will also look at funding for

the 2010 census, including the $1 billion allocated in the stimulus

bill.

Census day 2010 is nearly 1 year away, yet as we learned in our

hearing on March 5th, there is still much work to be done by the

Bureau to put its operation plans in place. The Regional Partnership Program could be very helpful in ensuring that everyone is

counted. The program is credited with attributing to the success of

the 2000 census. According to the report of the GAO, key censustaking activity, such as recruiting temporary Census workers and

encouraging people to complete their questionnaire, would have

been less successful had it not been for the Bureau’s aggressive

partnership efforts.

The paid advertising program could also play a key role in reducing the undercount as it did in 2000. The Bureau has plans to use

national and local media to get the word out about the census and

encourage participation. Media buys should seek to reach diverse

markets in the most effective and cost-efficient manner possible.

We will find out today how the Bureau plans to accomplish this

goal.

I thank all of our witnesses for appearing today and look forward

to their testimony. And I want to thank Ms. Watson for joining us

today. And I want to go to my friend and the ranking minority

member, Mr. McHenry, of North Carolina. I know you just got

here.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Mr. MCHENRY. I am a little winded.

Mr. CLAY. I can imagine. Take your time. Well, take your time.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you all for testifying today. Chairman Clay and I certainly have the same goal, which is to make sure that this is the

best census in our Nation’s history, the most accurate in our Nation’s history. And an important function of that would be to reduce

the undercount for this census. The Census Bureau’s Regional

Partnership Program, and advertising plan are part of an Integral

Communications Campaign, aimed at reducing the 2010

undercount, reaching hard-to-count communities, and achieving a

full-count decennial census.

Reaching these communities is not only important but also required by the U.S. Constitution. A full-count census and actual numeration is specifically and firmly rooted in Article I of our Constitution. The economic stimulus bill included $1 billion in additional funding for the Census Bureau with at least $250 million of

that amount specifically designated by Congress for the Partnership Program and outreach to traditionally hard-to-count communities. The Partnership Program for the 2000 Census, involved

more than 140,000 organizations, and for 2010, the Bureau has already partnered with over 10,000 organizations and hired over 800

partnership staff. In order for such a large endeavor to succeed,

rigorous oversight and transparency of funds and of participants is

vitally important.

In hiring temporary enumerators, the Census Bureau has testified it will conduct thorough FBI background checks that include

fingerprinting. I think that is good reassurance for the public that

when an enumerator comes to visit them, they can open the door

and it is a law-abiding citizen on the other side. We must make

sure the Bureau has comparable measures in place to hold organizations participating in the Partnership Program and their employees equally accountable for their actions.

Furthermore, the Bureau should have clear guidelines and

standards for the selection of partner organizations. It is important

to ensure that contractors are awarded through a competitive process and not simply doled out, money doled out to anyone who applies, as well as monitor how and where money is spent by participating organizations. Accountability and the spending of these

funds are obviously essential.

Today’s hearing presents an opportunity for the Bureau to describe the quality control measures in place to implement, to fully

implement this plan in their hiring of all field workers and enumerators and the field work process in general.

As I said before, Chairman Clay and I share the goal of ensuring

that every individual in America will be counted once, only once,

and where they live on census day 2010. A transparent accountable

partnership process and strong advertising campaign are fundamental to achieving it. I also recognize that the list of folks testifying today is not as full and complete as we had hoped in terms

of our request that the head of the Partnership Program testify

about the roles that they are fulfilling. We had hoped to hear directly from the individual that is overseeing hundreds of millions

of dollars worth of our taxpayer dollars and that we believe is esVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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sential to making sure that we reduce the undercount and reach

hard-to-reach communities.

I think it is unfortunate that we don’t have the division head testifying today. I think we will have many specific questions that Mr.

Mesenbourg, that we will need to get specific answers from. And

the reason why we wanted the division head to testify is so we can

get those specific questions. We certainly respect you. We certainly

respect the duties that you fulfill, but we also want to make sure

that we get specific answers so that we can have the proper policies

in place and the funding in place to reduce this undercount.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Patrick T. McHenry follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you Mr. McHenry. I will now go to Ms. Watson

if you have an opening statement.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And I think

holding today’s hearing is very, very important as we examine the

Census Bureau’s strategy for reducing the undercount of traditionally hard-to-count populations in the 2010 census. I look forward

to hearing the challenges and the goals shaping the Bureau’s Integrated Communications Campaign to promote the census, improve

participation, and decrease the differential undercount.

Since the establishment of the decennial census in 1790 every

census has experienced an undercount. And particularly in my district, certain areas run a double-digit undercount. According to the

Government Accountability Office, the 2000 census missed an estimated 2 percent of the U.S. population, a disproportionate number

of which were minorities, lower-income households and children.

My district in particular has traditionally been undercounted due

to a lack of engagement with the local constituencies. This

undercount is troubling because, without accurate population data,

it is important to ensure that the Americans have representation

in State and Federal Government and that Federal grants are targeted to where they are needed the most.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 author- ized $501.5 billion worth of new spending measures to revitalize

the American economy while assisting those most impacted by the

recession. This unprecedented investment in our future makes the

need for the 2010 census to be as thorough and accurate as possible, even greater, as the success of the stimulus relies upon complete population data to ensure funds are directed efficiently and

equitably.

The Census Bureau’s Integrated Communications Campaign reduced the undercount rate for the 2000 census relative to 1990 and,

according to the GAO, appears to be comprehensive and to be integrated. Success now depends on the ability of the Bureau to move

effectively from the planning to the operational phase while incorporating best practices and lessons learned from the 2000 census

to translate increased public awareness into actual participation.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank all of the panelists who

have come here today for their cooperation with today’s proceedings, and I look forward to hearing more details about the Partnership Program and the target media strategy of the Integrated Communications Campaign as we monitor efforts to reduce the

undercount in the 2010 census.

Thank you so much, and I yield back the remainder of my time,

Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Watson, for that opening.

Now I am going to go to Mr. Chaffetz of Utah. You are recognized for an opening statement.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate you calling this hearing. It is important that in the

discharge of the constitutional duty in conducting this census that

we all be vigilant in the expenditure of dollars and the time and

effort and the call upon the American people to participate willingly in helping us to make sure that we do not undercount the

population of the United States of America, nor do we overcount it.

So I appreciate the witnesses who are willing to come here today

and participate in this hearing. I thank them.

I also want to make sure, as we move forward and we discuss

the issues that affect the census, that we also deal with the American people’s money in a transparent and accountable way. There

are significant dollars that will be flowing out the door, and I want

to make sure that we have safeguards in place to monitor the expenditure of those dollars and that the American people have the

ability to understand where and how those dollars are spent.

I also have some questions and concerns about how and who we

would partner with in order to execute this so that we have the

faith of the American people that it is being done in an transparent

way; that they have the safety and security of knowing that their

vital information is dealt with appropriately. And I do have some

questions that I would appreciate you addressing regarding the

Partnership Program specifically.

Again, I thank you for being here today and thank the chairman

for calling this hearing. Thank you.

I yield back my time.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much. Thank you for your statement.

Let me now introduce our panel. We will hear first from Mr.

Thomas Mesenbourg, Acting Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Thank you for being here.

Our next witness will be Mr. Robert Goldenkoff, Director of Strategic Issues at the GAO. Mr. Goldenkoff’s responsibilities include

directing work on the 2010 census.

Good to see you again.

Our third witness will be Mr. Jeff Tarakajian, executive vice

president of DraftFCB, the prime contractor on the 2010 Census

Integrated Communications Campaign.

So good to see you again, Jeff.

Our final witness will be Ms. Stacey Cumberbatch, the city census coordinator for the city of New York. Ms. Cumberbatch is responsible for managing the execution of Census Operations in the

city.

Let me welcome you Ms. Cumberbatch, and all of you, to our

hearing today.

It is the policy of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to swear in all witnesses before they testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. Let the record reflect all of the witnesses

answered in the affirmative.

Each of you will have 5 minutes to make an opening statement.

Your complete written testimony will be included in the hearing

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record. The yellow light will indicate that it is time to sum up. The

red light will indicate that your time has expired.

Mr. Mesenbourg, you may begin with your opening statement.

STATEMENTS OF THOMAS L. MESENBOURG, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS; ROBERT GOLDENKOFF,

DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; STACEY CUMBERBATCH, CITY CENSUS COORDINATOR, CITY OF NEW YORK; AND JEFF

TARAKAJIAN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, DRAFTFCB

STATEMENT OF THOMAS L. MESENBOURG

Mr. MESENBOURG. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry,

members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to provide you with an update on the Census Bureau’s 2010 Integrated

Communications Program.

Our 2010 goal is to count everyone, no matter how difficult or

challenging that task may be. An insightful, engaging, and effective

Communications Campaign is an essential component of a successful census. The 2010 Communications Program is multifaceted, employing and integrating paid advertising, public relations, a very

robust Partnership Program, and a Census in Schools component.

The campaign uses multimedia to reach people by television, radio,

magazine, newspapers, outdoor and commuter media and the Internet and through trusted voices in the local communities.

The 2010 Communications Campaign is data-driven, using detailed track level on mail-back response rates from census 2000

and updated household characteristics to identify the hard-to-count

segments of our population within media markets and local communities. This information will help provide the right message in

the right media in the appropriate language at the right time. The

hard-to-count track level information was used to segment the population into eight relatively homogeneous groups or clusters. Five

of the clusters represent hard-to-count populations, and they will

be targeted during every phase of the Communications Campaign.

Decisions related to budget allocations and media buys use the

hard-to-count scores. The advertising campaign includes a national

and a local component.

With the addition of $100 million in stimulus funding for advertising, our preliminary estimate allocates $63 million for the National Campaign. The National Campaign is designed to reach all

persons who consume media in English, regardless of race or ethnicity; $82 million will be spent on local advertising, and that is directed at the harder-to-count populations. The local targeted advertising delivers messages in local, ethnic media, in language and in

culture.

The Census in Schools Program will be national in scope with an

emphasis on hard-to-count populations. This program encourages

students to tell their parents about the importance of the census.

The program provides every school with teaching guides, lesson

plans, maps, brochures and take-home materials in English and in

Spanish.

Now, while paid advertising can educate, inform and motivate

households and individuals, census 2000 demonstrated that Census

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Bureau partners at the national and local levels serve as powerful

and trusted advocates that can effectively reach segments of the

population not persuaded by advertising. Partnerships will be integrated with all other communication channels, including advertising, broadcast and print media, internet initiatives and the Census

in Schools Program, with the aim of creating positive messages

about the 2010 census in hard-to-count communities.

Staff in the Census Bureau’s 12 regional census centers began

work with key stakeholders in mid-2008 when 120 partnership

staff were mobilized to engage local and State governments, tribal

leaders, faith-based and community-based organizations to support

the census through the establishment of Complete Count Committees, an effective and proven initiative. We now have 680 local

partnership specialists hard at work recruiting trusted local leaders who will use their influence and networks to motivate their

communities to fully participate in the 2010 census.

Currently more than 13,000 organizations have made commitments to partner with the U.S. Census Bureau. Stimulus funding

will permit us to add an additional 2,000 partnership staff. Partnership staff, like all of our field staff, will be hired locally. They

know the neighborhood, the challenges and the trusted voices in

the community. Mobilizing a larger and better trained cadre of

partnership staff and partners will help us meet the challenges of

counting an increasingly diverse population.

Mr. Chairman, our Integrated Communication Campaign is well

positioned to educate, inform, motivate and mobilize our Nation’s

households to participate in the 2010 census. A complete and accurate 2010 census is our highest priority, and we are determined to

produce a census count that fairly represents everyone in our Nation. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mesenbourg follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Mesenbourg.

And we will go to Mr. Goldenkoff now. You may proceed with

your statement.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT GOLDENKOFF

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. McHenry and

members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to be

here today to provide a progress report on the Census Bureau’s Integrated Communications Campaign.

The campaign is a critical component of the census because it is

aimed at boosting participation, especially among traditionally

hard-to-count groups. Funding for the Communications Campaign

received a substantial boost under the recently enacted American

Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Among other things, the

act provided up to $250 million in additional funding for outreach

efforts to hard-to-count populations. This is a 61 percent increase

over the $410 million the Bureau had originally budgeted for its

communication effort.

As requested, my remarks this morning focus on the status of the

campaign’s key components, including partnerships with governmental and other organizations; paid advertising in public relations; and Census in Schools, a program designed to reach parents

and guardians through their school age children. In reviewing

these components, this much is clear: If implemented as planned,

the Communications Campaign will help position the Bureau to address the undercount.

However, most of the activities we examined are in the planning

or early implementation stages, and considerable work lies ahead.

Future success will depend in part on how well the Bureau incorporates lessons learned and best practices from the 2000 census

and takes other steps to enhance performance and accountability.

Importantly, the Communications Campaign is focused on hardto-count populations. As one example, Draft FCB, the contractor responsible for orchestrating the campaign, worked with the Bureau

to segment the population into distinct clusters using data from the

2000 census that have correlated with a person’s likelihood to respond. Each cluster was given a hard-to-count score, and the Bureau’s communications efforts are to be targeted to those clusters

with the highest scores.

With respect to the campaign-specific components, the Bureau’s

Partnership Program is set to expand with additional funding

under the Recovery Act. The Bureau had initially planned to hire

680 partnership staff for the 2010 census and achieved that level

earlier this year. However, funding for the Recovery Act will enable

the Bureau to hire around 2,000 additional partnership staff over

the next few months. By comparison, the Bureau employed around

600 partnership staff for the 2000 census.

Now, on the one hand, the higher staffer levels will enable the

Bureau to better support local partnership efforts. On the other

hand, it will be important for the Bureau to have the appropriate

management infrastructure in place to hire, train, deploy, and supervise these additional personnel.

Further, given the current state of the economy, the partners’

ability to support the census is unclear. State and local governVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ments, as well as community organizations, may not have the

budget, staff or time to aggressively promote the census.

With respect to paid advertising, the Bureau plans to use numerous media sources, including digital media, to reach a diverse audience. Further, the Bureau has completed market research to get an

understanding of people’s feelings about the census and the factors

that inspire or hinder participation.

The Census in Schools Program is also moving forward under a

contract with Scholastic Publishing. The Bureau plans to spend

around $11 million on this effort in 2010, compared to $17 million

in 2000. The Bureau believes the reduced funding levels will not

significantly affect the program because it plans to leverage materials developed in 2000. It also plans to better target its efforts and

make more of the materials available electronically through the

Bureau’s Web site rather than through printed copies.

However, as with the Partnership Program, the extent to which

schools have the resources to disseminate this material is unclear,

and it will be important that the schools do not perceive the Bureau’s approach as a financial burden.

In summary, the Bureau’s Communications Campaign appears to

be comprehensive and integrated. Further, the Bureau appears to

be addressing some of the factors that will be important for success, including incorporating lessons learned from 2000 and targeting resources to hard-to-count populations.

Nevertheless, while the Communications Campaign has made

some important steps forward, considerable work lies ahead in getting all of the key components fully operational. Further, while the

funding from the Recovery Act could help expand the Bureau’s outreach and promotion efforts, less clear is the extent to which these

additional funds will improve response behavior or which components of the campaign will yield the best results. So, therefore, in

moving forward, it will be important for the Bureau to develop a

spending plan for the additional funding it receives under the Recovery Act identifying, among other things, cost estimates of the activities to be funded, the objectives and outcome-related goals of

the plan spending, and how the spending will help achieve those

goals.

Chairman Clay and Mr. McHenry, members of the subcommittee,

this concludes my remarks, and I will be happy to answer any

questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldenkoff follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Goldenkoff.

Mr. Tarakajian, you are up for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF JEFF TARAKAJIAN

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. McHenry, members of the

subcommittee, DraftFCB and our subcontractor partners thank you

for the opportunity today to talk to you about the Integrated Communications Campaign for the 2010 census.

Joining me today are colleagues from DraftFCB and our subcontractor partners: GlobalHue, D’Exposito and GlobalHue Latino.

Since we spoke to you last on July 2, 2008, we remain on track

to deliver the Communications Campaign to the marketplace in

January 2010. Our work continues to be on budget, and we have

made considerable progress. Let me give you a few highlights of

that progress.

First, the plan for the Integrated Communications Campaign

was completed on July 15th and accepted by the Bureau in September 2008. We began field work for the Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivator Study [CBAMS], in July and reported on its

findings in the fall of 2008. This study has proven very, very effective to messaging development and to media planning, particularly

in understanding the attitudes and behaviors of the hard-to-count.

From a creative and messaging-development standpoint,

DraftFCB and our partners developed creative concepts during November and December of last year for all audiences. We produced

rough versions of approximately 114 concepts. We traveled across

the country gaining feedback in language and in culture from the

audiences that will see these messages. In total, we spoke to approximately 1,400 people in 21 cities in the 48 contiguous States,

Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, representing all races and ethnicities. In April, we will be presenting

a final report of findings to the Bureau, and we plan to begin production of the advertising in June.

From a media standpoint, DraftFCB and our partners developed

media plans for all audiences earlier this year. Currently we are

issuing RFPs to media companies. We are also beginning to replan

incorporating incremental dollars from the stimulus funding. These

plans will be presented to the Bureau in April. While the timing

of the upfront buy is very market-driven, we expect it to conclude,

at the latest, in August 2009, which is the first phase of our buying. And the second buying phase for local media will occur in the

fall of 2009.

With regard to the Partnership Program, we provide promotional

items and materials to support it. We have developed materials

and items, both ourselves and our partners that have started arriving in regional offices in March and will continue through November. Materials consist of either action or awareness messaging.

They will be available in 19 languages. All of them will be available electronically and many printed as well.

With regard to public relations, we have been supporting the activity of the Bureau’s PIO office with initiatives including weekly

media monitoring, media training, the development of media lists

and logistics for the partner kick-off meeting later this month.

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For Census in Schools, the Bureau accepted the plan in January.

We have begun implementation with the mailing of an announcement letter to principals. As far as the contract overall is concerned, we are on track to reach our very aggressive goal of 40 percent of the contract spending to small business. Most of these opportunities will occur in fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2010 in

connection with the local and national media buys.

In summary, at the risk of stating the obvious, the planning and

implementation of the campaign is an enormous effort. We fully

recognize its importance and urgency. There is only one chance to

do this right. So we are grateful to the encouragement, input, and

advice of stakeholders and oversight.

We are fully committed to making the campaign’s decisions research and fact-based, as well as sensitive to the counsel of those

whose insight and experience will help improve our efforts. So we

proactively have incorporated as many opportunities in the campaign’s development as possible to gain that insight. Today we look

forward to your observations and advice, as well as any questions

you may have about this extraordinary effort. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tarakajian follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Tarakajian.

We will now go to our final witness, Ms. Cumberbatch. You have

5 minutes to make a presentation.

STATEMENT OF STACEY CUMBERBATCH

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Good morning Chairman Clay, members of

the subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with

you today about the city of New York’s plans to ensure a full and

accurate count of our population.

My name is Stacey Cumberbatch. I was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve as the city of New York’s census 2010 coordinator. I have over 20 years of experience in public service, philanthropy and the law. The city of New York is the most populous

and ethnically diverse city in the United States, with a population

of 8.36 million people as of July 2008. Over 3 million of New York

City’s residents are foreign-born, about one-fifth of whom arrived

since 2000.

New York City has the largest Chinese population of any city

outside of Asia. More people of West Indian ancestry live in New

York than any city outside of the West Indies. Over 2.27 million

Hispanics live in New York City, more than any other city in the

United States. Non-Hispanic New Yorkers of African descent numbered 1.95 million in 2006, more than double the count of any other

city in the United States. More than 200 languages are spoken

with almost one-half of all New Yorkers speaking a language other

than English at home.

New York City’s diversity is its strength, but it also poses a challenge to ensure that every New Yorker is counted in the 2010 census. Recognizing this, Mayor Bloomberg established the City Census Coordinator Office to act as the primary liaison with the Census Bureau, leverage city resources and relationships to promote

the 2010 census and supplement the outreach activities and communication strategies of the Regional Census Office.

In a large and diverse city like New York, the Partnership Program is critical. However, there are many questions we have about

the Partnership Program. How does the Census Bureau determine

how many partnership specialists are assigned to New York City,

and how they are allocated across the city? How does the Bureau

evaluate the work of an individual partnership specialist as their

outreach work proceeds so that gaps and inefficiencies in their

strategies are identified and fixed before the enumeration? What is

the process to determine ethnic media buys in local markets? And

how is the communication plan coordinated with the work of the

Partnership Program?

The Census Bureau needs to adopt a more formal process of convening diverse local stakeholders together and engaging them early

in the development of a comprehensive local outreach and communication plan so that local expertise and resources are included and

considered. Again, I want to emphasize, there must be an ongoing

interactive feedback process as plans are implemented so that local

and Census Bureau resources can be deployed efficiently and problems can be fixed as they arise. While the city’s population exceeded 8 million for the first time in 2000; the overall response rate to

the mail-in questionnaire was 55 percent, much lower than the avVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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erage national response rate of 66 percent. A further analysis conducted by the city’s department of planning reveals that certain

neighborhoods have a high concentration of low response rates

tracked below 40 percent. These same neighborhoods had low response rates in the 1990 census, and in some areas, response rates

actually got worse in 2000.

One of our challenges over the next year is to penetrate these

particular neighborhoods to reverse this historically low census response rate. These neighborhoods are largely African American and

Afro-Caribbean. The New York City 2010 Census Office will make

a concerted effort in collaboration with the Regional Census Office

to work with a broad cross-section of leaders who can make the

case in these communities of why it is important to be counted and

participate in the census.

The census city coordinator’s office is also working with over 20

city government agencies to develop plans to promote the 2010 census through existing agency communication networks and activities. For example, the New York City Housing Authority, which

manages the city’s public housing stock and Section 8 program, has

assigned a staff person to my office to develop and implement an

outreach plan to reach 633,000 residents. One in 13 New Yorkers

receive housing assistance from the Housing Authority. We have

already held two briefing sessions with over 100 resident leaders

explaining the 2010 census and providing them with information

and data to focus their outreach efforts. This is an example of what

is required to heighten public awareness, build trust and encourage

people to participate in the census by filling out the questionnaire.

Public housing resident leaders got it right away about the importance. They were aghast to find out that certain developments

had response rates as low as 31 percent. Now, what is key here is

follow-through on everyone’s part to continue to carry the message.

In conclusion, while the census is a Federal responsibility, there

must be early and ongoing communication and accountability to

local governments and communities, given the impact of the census

on apportionment, districting and Federal funding. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cumberbatch follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much.

Perhaps we can get some of your questions answered today.

We will start with Mr. Mesenbourg. Let me ask you about, GAO

has pointed out that a longstanding challenge facing the Census

Bureau’s marketing efforts is converting awareness of the census

into an actual response. How do you plan to address this issue for

2010?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We see the Integrated Communication Plan as our vehicle for converting hard-tocount populations into mail-back respondents. And it will approach

this problem on several fronts. First of all, both our advertising and

our Partnership Program and our Census in Schools Program all

will focus on the hard-to-count population. So that is job one, to improve the mail response rate in the hard-to-count populations. The

advertising will do that by providing the right message in the right

language and the right media to those groups.

But we understand that awareness and information is not

enough. And that is why we are excited about the Partnership Program being expanded, thanks to the Recovery Act funding, to provide about 2,800 people that will be in the field providing logistical

support, reaching out to a broader group of partnership, possible

partners, and to provide the kind of follow-through that we sometimes lacked in 2000. So we see it as a very integrated program,

get the message out, the information out through the advertising,

follow through in the local areas, primarily through trusted voices

in that community.

Mr. CLAY. Would you describe the procedures that will be in

place to evaluate the level of effectiveness of partnerships as they

proceed so that gaps in their plans can be identified and addressed

by local entities? Will there be a real partnership between the Bureau and local communities?

Mr. MESENBOURG. That certainly is the aim, Mr. Chairman. And

we have a couple of things in place that I think that are going to

really assist on that. One is a tool we are calling our Integrated

Partnership Contact Database. This is new. Every time we partner

with an organization, we will actually enter information on the organization, the characteristics of the group they represent, the

number of members and affiliates that the group may have, whether they actually target a special ethnic audience, whether they are

a business, an educational kind of facility and such. That will also

lay out the kind of commitments that the organization has made

in terms of supporting the census. That might encompass things as

putting out promotional materials. It may involve establishing a

Complete Count Committee. It will have specific actions in that we

will then be tracking.

But I think, in terms of how effective we are, that is a responsibility of the regional directors and the regional staff, because

after all, we think the census is really a local phenomena. But it

will be also closely monitored by our field division office of partnerships. And I can assure you it is going to be closely followed by the

director, myself and our associate directors for decennial and field

operations. The real proof in the pudding is what will happen with

mail response rates and differential undercount. And that is something that we will be focusing on once we start data collection.

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But until that point, we are really going to be tracking very carefully the number of Complete Count Committees we have established. Last time we had 11,800. The goal for this census is to exceed that number. We have a goal of establishing 30,000 questionnaire assistance centers, and we have a goal of establishing 40,000

Be Counted. And we will be tracking how we are doing on reaching

those goals.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Tarakajian, what new information was learned from the

Census Barriers, Attitudes and Motivators survey that did not previously exist?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. The CBAM study was designed to give us a

measure of what holds people back from responding and what are

the things that we can use to motivate them to respond. We had,

through the audience segmentation that the Bureau had done

where the hard-to-count populations live. We took that, and we appended to it with an industry standard research source, called Simmons, the media habits of the hard-to-count and the rest of the

population. So what CBAMS gave us was the missing bit of information, which is why people respond or why they don’t respond

and what is necessary to get them to respond.

Some specific examples of how it helped us: We were able to segment the population into five mind-sets. And we learned, for example, in one of those mind-sets, which we call the head nodders, it

is a group of people who are very, very impressionable to messages

in the media. They may go into the census being predisposed to respond, but we know that their predisposition could change. So it

has helped us because we are able to put more frequency against

that particular target group in our media efforts than we might

have if we hadn’t had that bit of information. There are other

groups where we have learned that privacy and security is not only

a critical message, but that, in conjunction with the work that we

have done in copy testing, has helped us to better craft that message so we understand precisely what the right thing is to say.

Those are two examples.

Mr. CLAY. Let me stop you right there. Take a look at the map

on the wall behind you. Did you find anything different in your

study from what we have found in the map? And this came from

the Census Bureau, that data.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. TARAKAJIAN. The map tells us where people reside. It tells

us their location geographically, so, therefore, we can target our

media and target our spending to them. It doesn’t tell us why they

do what they do. And the CBAM study is all about the why, so that

we are able to then craft the media in terms of how we plan the

media, what kinds of frequencies we use, what kinds of vehicles we

may choose, as well as craft the message more precisely. That is

really the value of this study.

Mr. CLAY. And when you surveyed cities around the country, did

you get any indication why suburban areas and urban areas varied

so widely?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. I am not sure whether it is so much that it is

somebody lives in the suburbs versus somebody that lives in the

city as the reason why it varies. It has to do with things related

to people’s lifestyles, people’s family situations as really the sort of

first reasons why somebody might or might not respond. For example, one of the factors that is a critical factor is renting versus

homeownership. Linguistic isolation versus being fluent in English

is another critical factor.

Mr. CLAY. Renters versus homeowners, they both get mail. They

both get the response form, so what is the difference?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Could you repeat your question, I am sorry?

Mr. CLAY. You said that one of the reasons were renters versus

homeowners if you look at it suburban versus urban. So, I mean,

both renters and homeowners receive mail on a daily basis mostly,

so what is the problem there?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. One difference between renting and homeownership is, when you own a home, you make a longer-term,

philosophically, commitment to being in that particular location. If

you are a renter, you might only be making a 6-month commitment, a year-long commitment. You don’t have the sense of ties to

the community that you might. And therefore, you may see responding to the census as being not quite so relevant and not quite

so important to you versus being a homeowner.

Mr. CLAY. And your study cost how much?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. The study in total was a little over $1.4 million.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Chaffetz, I recognize you for questions.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My understanding is, after the 2000 census, the GAO found that

the Bureau had, in its report back, the GAO had found that the

Bureau had no clear guidelines or criteria for selecting organizations in which it would partner for the census.

So my question, Mr. Mesenbourg, in the absence of Mr. Olson,

we are disappointed that he chose not to be here, in order to become a partner with the census, is there anything that would preclude anybody from being—is there any criteria by which they cannot become a partner with the census?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Let me start with what our criteria are. So we

are looking for organizations that possibly had in the past participated. They actually know what——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I am just interested in what would exclude somebody from being a partner.

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Mr. MESENBOURG. Anything that would be an embarrassment to

the census and prove ineffective to actually getting the hard-tocount to integrate.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How do you define what an embarrassment is? Is

that past behavior?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No. It probably would be more in current behavior. I am not quite clear what you are asking, Congressman. I

mean, there are certainly certain organizations that we are not

going to partner with.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The question is, how do you determine which

ones are and which ones aren’t?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, as we look at the Partnership Program,

we look at it about the same way as we look at the census; that

it should be conclusive. So we start with the assumption that, if an

organization has good reach in the hard-to-count areas, then we

will be willing to partner with them.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But is there any criteria by which you would exclude somebody from partnering? If they had criminal backgrounds,

if members had—I mean, is there no written criteria?

Mr. MESENBOURG. We have the written criteria that I was articulating. First, what is the reach into the hard-to-count areas? Do

they have some—do they have respect? Will they be listened to in

those organizations? Do they have the kind of organization that

will permit them to be viewed as a trusted voice? So I think the

trust of the organization in the local community will be a key criteria.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, I guess that is the question, is, how do we

define who is trustworthy? Who would be, and to use your words,

an embarrassment? Where is that line, is what I am trying to get

at?

Mr. MESENBOURG. We don’t have a hard line. I would say we

start with the proposition that we should be inclusive. And if an

organization demonstrates that they are not going to be a strong

supporter to the census, then that would give us pause for continuing the partnership. At this point, of course, we are very early in

forging these partnerships. And what most organizations do, they

may agree to do proclamations, provide onsite recruiting and training sites and those sorts of things.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You can understand and appreciate there are

some organizations out there that would draw criticism from some

and praise from others. So there is no hard line. Based on the 2000

census and the recommendation from the GAO, given all those

years, there is actually no written guidelines that say, ‘‘we would

exclude these people.’’ Even if they were involved in corruption,

voter fraud, anything like that, would that not exclude somebody

from participating?

Mr. MESENBOURG. That would give us pause for consideration

whether we should partner, if there was proof that they had done

that sort of behavior.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. As an individual or as an organization or both?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, typically—I mean, always we are

partnering with the organization, not with the specific individual

within the organization.

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you would look at the actions of the individuals within that organization to help make that determination as

to whether or not they had a pattern of misbehavior?

Mr. MESENBOURG. We would not have the capability of doing

that. In census 2000, we partnered with over 140,000 organizations. It is just not practical or feasible to track every individual’s

performance within that, or should that be the business of the Census Bureau, I believe. If the organization has the respect of people

in the local community and can help us count the hard-to-count

people, then we would partner with them.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Even if they don’t have the respect, then, by the

same criteria, you would say, we would exclude them.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. We are looking for partners to be trusted

voices within the local community.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What about political organizations, is that an acceptable, if that group is a political organization, would that be an

acceptable criteria by which they could participate as a partner?

Mr. MESENBOURG. We partnered in census 2000; we formed

11,800 Complete Count Committees. Those committees were

formed by the highest elected official in the town, the city, the

State. So, in that sense, we certainly have a long record of

partnering with political organizations, State and local governments, tribal governments.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How many census workers will partners be supplying to the Bureau overall would you guess?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The partners will not be providing any persons to work on the census. They will be providing their expertise,

their resources to help us promote our message. They will not be

involved in census taking or census activities directly at all.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What are the specific penalties for an enumerator

committing fraud?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Five years imprisonment and/or $250,000 fine.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Based on the last census, how many people actually were convicted of such a penalty?

Mr. MESENBOURG. I don’t have that figure on the top of my head,

but I can get it for you, Congressman.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What is the legal authority or who has jurisdiction to actually go back and pursue somebody that you may believe

as an enumerator may be fraudulent? Is that the FBI? Who pursues that?

Mr. MESENBOURG. That would be the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, OK. And what mechanism do you have in place to actually, once they reach that threshold, to actually engage the U.S. Attorney’s Office?

Mr. MESENBOURG. We have detailed quality assurance steps in

place that, for example, during the nonresponse followup operation

will do a re-interview process. And that will permit us to identify

systematic fraud being conducted by an enumerator. And that

would be the—that would engender legal action being taken

against them.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for allowing me to go

over my time.

Let me just say in conclusion that it is very disappointing to

know that there is no written guideline as to who would qualify

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and not qualify. I know what you are looking for. You want to get

as many bodies and as many organizations involved as possible.

But I find it totally unacceptable and scary, quite frankly, that we

don’t have criteria by which we can all agree that partnerships

would either—partners would either meet a certain threshold or

not meet a certain threshold. I would hope that, at your easiest

convenience, you would get back to this committee, and me specifically, with details as to who qualifies and who doesn’t, because

there are some organizations on that list that, quite frankly, many

of us are very concerned about. While certain segments of the population may think there is no problem, I happen to be one that

thinks there is a problem. And I am very disappointed that, given

the GAO report that came after 2000, that there was no followup,

and there is no written guideline. And I think we should all be very

concerned about it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Ms. Watson, you are recognized.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

According to the March 20th Washington Post article, ‘‘The current economic crisis may threaten the 2010 census efforts to get a

full and accurate count,’’ the increase in home foreclosures and the

rising jobless rates means that Americans are, indeed, leaving their

homes. All the while, increased financial hardships may make

some Americans less willing to cooperate with census workers.

Now—and this is for anyone on the panel that might want to respond—are there any specific plans in the Integrated Communication Campaign which reflects this new reality? And do you foresee

the economic crisis adding to the undercount rate of hard-to-count

populations?

And let me just say, I’m looking up here at some handouts—and

you probably have a copy of them—and I’m really troubled. Because the areas that we get the less response in the undercount are

the areas that have been hit hardest by foreclosures. So, anyone on

the panel, and let’s just go down the line.

Mr. MESENBOURG. All right. Let me start.

Let me just reiterate that our entire communications strategy is

focusing on the hard-to-count populations; and these maps actually

reflect the data that we’re using in terms of where to devote resources, both from an advertising perspective but also from our

local Partnership Program. The Partnership Program is really our

voice into the local community, and we are looking at the hard-tocount areas, and that’s where we are going to be placing additional

partnership staff.

What we need are folks in the local community to tell us and inform us on some of the special problems that we may be encountering, whether they’re tent cities or increasing foreclosure rates. That

will help us shape the message; and it will also help us form Questionnaire Assistance Centers in those areas so we can reach out to

that group and assist them on, first, reassuring them that it’s safe

and confidential to fill out the data and, second, we provide a location they can come to actually fill that out.

Ms. WATSON. Anybody else want to answer that?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. I would echo some of that, that the Partnership Program is key to getting down to the grass roots level, conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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vincing people that it’s OK to respond to the census, overcoming

any barriers that they have, their fears that they have to respond

to the census, whether it’s concerns about confidentiality or privacy

or how the information will be used. The Questionnaire Assistance

Centers, the Be Counted Campaign will also be part of that as

well.

So what the Census Bureau has—and this is a good thing—is a

series of backstopping operations, where if the Census Bureau

misses you in one operation, they will try and get you in another

operation. And they have several of these safety nets.

I do want to point out, though, with the Census Bureau’s use of

numbers here, I think they use 30,000 Questionnaire Assistance

Centers and 40,000 Be Counted locations. Now, all of those Questionnaire Assistance Centers will be Be Counted locations. So the

total is not 70,000. It’s actually there will be 30,000 Questionnaire

Assistance Centers and 10,000 additional Be Counted locations. So

that number was not as big as was made by the Census Bureau.

Ms. WATSON. Let me just expand my inquiry here.

In California, we have one particular town that’s a ghost town,

almost completely in foreclosure. You send something to that address; people are no longer there. How are we going to track to be

able to find where this population has disappeared to so they can

be counted? They are no longer in that town.

Mr. MESENBOURG. So one response, if that community would

have participated in our local update of census addresses that was

done about a year ago, then we may have some intelligence about

that; and those changes would have been reflected in our census

mail list. If they haven’t been, then when we go out to the field—

or, hopefully, before we go out to the field—in conversations with

those local communities people will tell us and inform us that this

is a real problem issue; and then we can take appropriate action.

As my colleague from GAO was mentioning, we have various

ways that we can enumerate. One is mailing a census form out and

hoping it comes back. Another is actually to send an enumerator

to an address and try to collect that data right away.

Ms. WATSON. If they are no longer in Dodge?

Mr. MESENBOURG. If they are no longer there, it would be useful

for us to know that at the beginning of the census process. Because

our normal procedure would be to mail out a census report form.

Then we wouldn’t get any response back. We would send another

replacement form, possibly, out there. And then, eventually, at the

beginning of May we would send an enumerator. And we will visit

six times to make sure that no one is actually there. So the sooner

that we could identify that was a problem, the better off we would

be.

Ms. WATSON. My time is almost up, but let me just say this. I

hope that if you prepare a standard, you base it on now and not

in the past. Because we do want criminals who are back in the population counted. We want every individual. They exist somewhere,

and this means resources to the community where they exist. So

I don’t think criminal records have anything to do with it.

I always suggest, and I call in the Regional Director, where I’m

located in Los Angeles, to talk about how we can count people. And

we want people maybe like kind to go in, particularly with some

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of our ethnic communities. If somebody comes in looking like a

process server, believe me, the population disappears. But if they

come in looking like a member of the community, they are more

trusted.

We have this problem with apartments, because they will put

two people down where there really are 12 people residing in there,

hiding out. So I do hope that you will take into consideration what

we need now, the undercount, and how we solve that problem.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the extra time.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Watson, for those pointed questions.

I appreciate it.

Now, Mr. McHenry, you are recognized for questions.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding

this hearing, and thank you for your leadership.

Mr. Mesenbourg, the original notice from the committee was a

request to testify by Mr. Tony Farthing, New York Regional Director of the Census Bureau, and Mr. Tim Olson, Assistant Division

Chief of Partnership for the Field Division of the Census Bureau,

the subject matter of this hearing today. However, as we all can

see, they are not seated next to you. There are two empty chairs.

Are they present here today?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No, they’re not, Congressman.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. I think it’s disrespectful to the committee for

you to simply say, no, they cannot testify. Can you tell me why

they’re not testifying today? Did it not meet with their schedule?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, actually, it’s been our past practice that

either the—well, typically, that the Director, the Acting Director

will testify. Where we needed the expertise, we would certainly

have had Associate Directors testify. I think it’s been rare, indeed,

where we’ve had grade 15 office chiefs testify. I believe that I have

to be knowledgeable about what’s going on in the organization; and

I feel comfortable about our Partnership Program, where we are

and where we need to be.

The other thing that we have been doing is we’ve been doing a

series of briefings on the Hill. We’ve been bringing in our Regional

Directors, and we’ve been bringing in the appropriate staff for

those staff briefings.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, I would certainly want a full briefing, and

I do think it’s important.

Based on this precedent, so the Director and the Acting Director

is the representative of the Bureau around the city and before Congress?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The Acting Director—I’m sorry, Congressman—I believe, yes, I am representing the Census Bureau.

Mr. MCHENRY. But that’s your tradition, is that you represent

the Bureau?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes.

Mr. MCHENRY. It’s interesting because I just read a story about

a forum at Brookings, and yet a division head represented the Bureau there.

Mr. MESENBOURG. That’s right. Frank Petrano represented the

Bureau. Up until about a week ago, we had no presence at that

forum. So we called the organizers and asked to send someone. AcVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tually, they asked for Frank to sit on the panel that discussed the

census.

Mr. MCHENRY. So it’s OK for division heads to speak around

town, but they can’t come before Congress.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, I wouldn’t agree to that——

Mr. MCHENRY. It just seems ridiculous to me, is what I’m saying.

We’ve got an individual who’s going to be spending hundreds of

millions of taxpayer dollars that we actually want technical answers for to make sure that we minimize the undercount, and they

can’t testify.

So I’m going to have some specific questions. You’ll probably end

up having to talk to Mr. Olson and have written answers for it, and

I understand. That’s not to say that—you’re running a big organization. It’s a multibillion dollar organization. Therefore, we’re just

trying to get the division knowledge and make sure we have a

strong baseline of understanding of where we can help. That’s what

it’s all about.

Now, was that decision made by you to not allow them to testify?

Mr. MESENBOURG. It was made by the Department of Commerce.

Mr. MCHENRY. The Department of Commerce. Who is the head

of the Department of Commerce currently? Who made that decision?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The senior advisor to the Secretary, along

with the communications staff down——

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, there is no Secretary; there’s an Acting Secretary.

Mr. MESENBOURG. I’m saying the senior staff assistant to the

Secretary-to-be.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, the Secretary-to-be wasn’t sworn in when

this decision was made. The answer was ‘‘no’’ last week, and there

was no Commerce Secretary. He was testifying before a committee

in the Senate last week.

Mr. MESENBOURG. The senior political official at the Commerce

Department made the decision. I didn’t mean to say that Secretary

Designate Locke made the decision.

Mr. MCHENRY. All right. Well, so, no White House—there’s no

White House involvement in this?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. All right. Well, let’s actually get to some substance here.

Frank Petrano before Brookings last week said that statistical

sampling ‘‘is not in our current plans.’’

Mr. MESENBOURG. That’s true.

Mr. MCHENRY. That’s true? Now, can you elaborate on that? It’s

not the current plans. Are there potential plans for sampling?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Statistical adjustment has not been in our

planning all during the decade as we prepared for the 2010 census.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. The way he words his answer, ‘‘It’s not in

our current plans,’’ I mean, wouldn’t you just say, ‘‘it’s not in our

plans?’’

Mr. MESENBOURG. It’s not in our plans, yes.

Mr. MCHENRY. All right. Well, to go to some other elements here,

Mr. Goldenkoff, certainly appreciate your reports on the commuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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nications efforts. It’s certainly helpful to get some outside assessment of the effectiveness and some historical reference here.

In figure one of your report, you talk about the undercounts and

overcounts between 1990 and the 2000 census. In figure one, there

are a number of different metrics of race and ethnicity of undercounts or overcounts. In figure one, there is a section, American Indian/Alaskan Native on reservations. There is a 12.22 percent

undercounts in 1990 and a 0.88 percent overcounts in 2000. Can

you speak to that, why there is such an enormous shift and what

was done to create that massive change?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. The Bureau recognized that, following the

1990 census, the American Indians had the most error. They were

the largest undercounted group, I believe, of all the different—for

the entire population. That particular segment had among the

highest, if not the highest, undercount, so the Bureau put forth a

tremendous effort, through its Partnership Program, the Tribal Liaison Program, to do a better job counting American Indians.

Mr. MCHENRY. Could you perhaps put together something and

explain exactly what was done? Because it seems like it’s a great

example of the Bureau’s success in reducing the undercount. It actually created an overcount.

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Sure. What we did—and we saw some of this.

We were out on the Menominee tribes in Wisconsin. And what the

Census Bureau did, among other things, it had a very active Census in Schools program on the tribes. They had partners that actually came from the tribes, and significantly they came from the

tribes that they were partnering with. And it gets back to the

trusted voices, again, that convinced American Indians to respond.

There was a paid media campaign that was specifically focused

on reservations, American Indians. There were posters specifically

focused and were culturally sensitive to American Indians.

And just one little tidbit from that to show how the Census Bureau is concerned about cultural sensitivity, there was an advertisement, I believe, where it showed a younger person—I think it

was a little boy—seated in front of an elder. And that, apparently,

was disrespectful, and so the Bureau made an effort then to change

it to make it culturally sensitive. So the Bureau was culturally

aware. So it was really a combination of all these different factors—communications, as I mentioned, and also going out to the

reservations and making sure they had accurate address lists.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Goldenkoff, the committee has learned of plans to spend an

additional $1 million of the stimulus funds to conduct more research. In your view, would it be wise to spend these funds to conduct more research, or to spend this funding as Congress intended,

on outreach to traditionally hard-to-count communities?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Certainly that’s where the Bureau has had the

most difficulty in the past, is with the hard-to-count. It’s not a matter of getting everybody—well, folks that are already going to participate, it would not be a wise use of taxpayer money. So the Bureau needs to focus on where it traditionally has the most difficulty

getting people to participate.

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In terms of how that money should be allocated, I mean, we certainly support the fact that the resources should be targeted. But

in terms of how the money should be allocated across the different

components, we have not seen any data to drive those particular

decisions, whether money should be invested in paid advertising,

versus more money for partnership specialists, versus more money

for local funding, money for supplies and things. We have not seen

any data to drive those decisions.

Mr. CLAY. So is data forthcoming, or is this just done internally?

Is the Bureau directing their partners in the—I guess DraftFCB?

Mr. Mesenbourg, tell me how these decisions are made.

Mr. MESENBOURG. We looked at, as our biggest challenge, improving the count of the hard-to-count populations. And two ways

of doing that was advertising, and almost all of the additional stimulus funding is going to go into local media buys, where we

really——

Mr. CLAY. Excuse me. How much is the total budget for Communications Campaign?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The total for the Communications contract is

now $312 million. That includes the advertising, the purchase

media, the public relations support through Census in Schools program.

For our local and regional Partnership Program, we are going to invest about $280 million in that program; and that’s going to be

primarily support for the 2,800 plus partnership specialists and assistants we’ll have in the field.

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. And if I could just clarify some of the remarks.

What the Bureau has is very good data down to the track level of

where these hard-to-count communities are, but what we haven’t

seen is good data on where the Bureau gets the biggest bang for

the buck in terms of return investment for these different components of its Communications Campaign.

Mr. CLAY. Will you make a determination of how to get the best

bang for the buck beforehand?

Mr. MESENBOURG. I can supplement a little bit my previous answer.

One of the important lessons that we’ve learned in Census

2000—and we did this through research that was conducted while

we were in the field collecting data—was that, actually, the household composition and the characteristics of that household were key

predictors of census mail-back rate.

Before, in the 1990 census and going into the 2000 census, the

conventional wisdom was that civic community participation was

an excellent predictor of census mail-back response rate. What we

found from this study was that was not the case. So the household

types with the highest response rate were what you might think

of as your traditional family: mother, father and children. The next

highest mail-back response rate was husband and wife with no

children, and so on. The group that had the lowest mail response

rate actually were households that were headed by a single head

of household and had children.

Then what we did is take the hard-to-track mail response rates

but also supplement that with the characteristics of the households

in those tracks, and that’s where we found things like renters have

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a lower mail response rate than people that actually owned their

house.

So I think this has been all very effective in helping us shape the

message for 2010, and I feel that the whole Communication Campaign this time is much more data-driven than it has been in the

past.

But to answer where we make the decisions, we saw that we

didn’t think we were investing enough in the local ethnically oriented advertising. We are going to increase that. But if the advertising doesn’t work, if we don’t have those partnership people in

the field mobilizing the local community, at May 2010 is too late

to start doing that now. So that was part of our decision.

Mr. CLAY. So there will be an emphasis put on single head of

household?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. That is one of the five hard to—but what

helps us, Chairman Clay, is tailoring that message to that group.

That’s what we’re trying to do.

Mr. CLAY. Let me go to Ms. Cumberbatch to kind of break this

up for a minute.

Ms. Cumberbatch, your office provided a map to the committee

that will be used to help guide your efforts. In your testimony, you

said African American and Afro Caribbean neighborhoods with low

response rates in 1990 remain low in the 2000 census, and some

actually got worse.

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. That’s correct.

Mr. CLAY. What are your theories about the continued low response rate in those neighborhoods?

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Well, clearly, whatever messaging and communication claim that was implemented in 2000 was not effective

in reaching those communities. Because, based on results, those

neighborhoods in New York City were pretty consistent. It’s basically the lowest response rate tracks in New York City are

throughout the five boroughs of New York City or are in African

American and Afro Caribbean communities. Central Harlem, central Brooklyn, southeast Queens—which I want to add is actually

a home-owning community with the highest median income in New

York City.

So, based on some of what I heard today about renters being low

responders, the reality of New York City is a little different. Because southeast Queens is a home-owning community, as well as

northwest Bronx, which is largely an African American, Afro-Caribbean and African community with large homeownership. So those

two communities in New York City—in fact, southeast Queens, the

response rates were lower between 1990 and 2000. It got worse. So,

obviously. There has to be some concerted effort in New York City

on those particular neighborhoods.

Mr. CLAY. In your view, what can the Bureau do to maximize

census participation in these traditionally hard-to-count neighborhoods?

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Well, from the perspective of New York City,

the regional office for New York City actually covers New York

City; it covers Long Island; it covers northern New Jersey; it covers

a population of about 20 million people in that whole region, New

York City being 8.3 million. And for that whole region there is

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something like 60 partners that have been hired to cover not just

New York City but to cover the region.

Clearly, just based on the population of New York City and the

diversity of New York City that I outlined in terms of ethnic diversity, language diversity, if we are going to penetrate these communities with partners, clearly, there has to be more partners on the

local level; and those partners have to be, obviously, from those

communities, have to have a lay of the land of what organizations

are effective communicators.

But one of the things that needs to happen is there has to be a

comprehensive plan at the local level. So bringing in all the local

stakeholders—local government, local leaders—to say, ‘‘OK, here’s

what the response rate was in 2000. Here is our challenge ahead.’’

How are we going to map out a strategy using the communication

strategy, leveraging what the Census Bureau is going to do but on

the local level? What is the plan of action?

And, right now, I don’t see that type of plan being implemented

in any region. In our region, I don’t know if that’s a requirement,

but it seems that if you’re going to have a strategy that’s comprehensive to bringing all the resources you need to convene all the

stakeholders and lay out that plan.

Mr. CLAY. Are you also part of the State of New York’s full count

community?

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. No. Actually, I’m just from New York City.

Mr. CLAY. Just New York City.

Ms. Watson, you may pursue.

Ms. WATSON. I just want to followup, Mr. Chairman, with your

questioning, too.

Mrs. Cumberbatch, I’m looking at the map I think that you probably are familiar with. And we can see that in a community, as opposed to, say, Harlem, in a community where most of these are

homeowners, middle class, maybe even upper middle class, and

taxpayers and so on, they have the worst rate.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Right.

Ms. WATSON. Now, who is responsible for laying out a plan and

evaluating to see if the figures, if the data is any better than what

it was when you took the last census?

I am really concerned when I see a map like this—and these are

mostly minorities. And you see that the count was really more effective and more reliable up in Harlem than it is down here. So

who’s responsible for planning out the strategy and evaluating it?

Would it be you, or would it be Mr. Mesenbourg?

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Well, clearly, it’s the U.S. Census Bureau.

Because it’s a Federal responsibility to do the census. And as a

local government and as taxpayers, they are accountable to local

government as well as all taxpayers on what that plan is, how detailed it is, and how does it really address something that has been

a historic undercount and low response rate.

That map was put together by the city’s planning department so

that we would have a guideline to make our efforts, in terms of the

city’s efforts; and we based it on response rates. So we didn’t use

the hard-to-count criteria, which, actually, if we had used it, might

have excluded southeast Queens because it’s a home-owning community. Yet the response rate shows that it’s a low-responding

community.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Mesenbourg, would you address my question?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Certainly. There are multiple dimensions

we’re attacking by segmenting the population. So certainly I didn’t

mean to indicate that only one of the eight clusters was a problem.

Actually, five of the eight we would characterize as hard-to-count

populations.

A couple points on the Afro-Caribbean. In 2000, we did not do

any advertising that specifically spoke to that audience; and that

is part of the campaign for 2010, so that ought to help.

The other thing we’re doing is significantly expanding our partnership presence in New York. As was said, we actually have 57

partnership specialists right now in the New York regional office.

With the additional stimulus funding, we’re going to bring in another 161 partnership staff to work on that office. So we’ll have

about 218 people. So we will have more than tripled it, and we

think that’s going to be a key initiative to get the message out to

those local communities.

Ms. WATSON. And then the evaluation to see if your planning has

been more effective in this decade.

Mr. MESENBOURG. OK, I can talk to that.

We’re going to be doing real-time assessment of the Partnership

Program in terms of how many commitments we have with partners, how are we doing in terms of establishing complete count

committees or Questionnaire Assistance Centers or sites to do recruiting and training. And we’ll be tracking those specific commitments.

We also will be doing an evaluation within local areas, because

we’re going to have all of this information documented in a database. And then at the end of the process, we’re going to do a systematic evaluation program—actually, the National Opinion and

Research Center is going to do an evaluation study which will asVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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sess and evaluate the effectiveness of both advertising, partnership,

and the Census in Schools program.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

What’s troubling to me as I look at this map of the greater New

York area is that places where African Americans live have the

lowest count, or the greatest undercount, and that’s very troubling.

And as I look at that map of the United States, you can almost

read through it and see, where you have your minority populations,

you get a tremendous undercount. So I would hope in this decade

that we would really concentrate on trying to get a more accurate

account.

And in saying that, there are some who feel like we need to take

the census out from underneath the Commerce Bureau and have

it as an independent agency, where you could really, really operate

independently and not be competitive with other huge issues that

come under Commerce. What is your thought on that?

Mr. MESENBOURG. As a career official, I have no opinion on that.

We’ll keep plugging along doing good methods as well as we can.

Ms. WATSON. Maybe we need to do something about that.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Watson.

I recognize Mr. McHenry for questioning.

Mr. MCHENRY. That was quite a dance.

Mr. Mesenbourg, I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but

what individual—was it the top political person within the Census

Bureau that said ‘‘no’’ to division heads testifying, or was it the top

political person at Commerce? I wasn’t sure.

Mr. MESENBOURG. It was the top political appointee at this

point—well, a week ago—at the Commerce Department.

Mr. MCHENRY. And who is that?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Rick Wade. But I would say I supported his

decision on that, also. I don’t want to put it all on him.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, certainly you probably requested the answer from him, I certainly understand, being in an acting position.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Well, let’s go through a series of questions

here about the Partnership Program. There’s $250 million funds for the Bureau in the stimulus package that was specifically designated by Congress for outreach programs; is that correct?

Mr. MESENBOURG. That’s correct.

Mr. MCHENRY. Can you tell us exactly how these groups the Bureau is partnering with are going to spend the $250 million? Can

you just give some broad overview?

Mr. MESENBOURG. OK. In terms of the stimulus money, in terms

of outreach, we’re going to spend an additional $100 million on advertising, public relations, and the Census in Schools program. Almost all of that money is going to go toward—most of that money

is going to go toward paid advertising. And of the additional money

we’re investing, 80 percent is going to go into local media, targeting

the hard to enumerate.

The additional $120 million that we are going to invest in the

Partnership Program, the vast majority of that money is going to

go into paying people. So we’re going to hire an additional 277

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partnership specialists on top of the 680 we have, so we’ll be close

to over 900.

And then we are going to hire 1,750 partnership assistants. This

is the first time, the first census that we will actually have these

partnership assistants; and they will permit us to extend our reach

out in the local communities and also to provide the kind of followup that we weren’t as strong as we should have been in census

2000.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Are the funds given to partners awarded

competitively, through a bidding process, or expended through

grants?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No funds to speak of are provided directly to

the partners. The partners can put in a proposal, say, to run some

sort of promotion, to ask us to provide a banner promoting the

2010 census. We will actually do that procurement ourselves. They

will put in a proposal, we will review the proposal, and then we

will actually contract to have the poster printed and delivered.

There is a limit in terms of what we can do in the transactions.

Any kind of good has to be under $3,000 and any service under

$2,500.

Mr. MCHENRY. And those things would be given basically in

kind. You would provide materials——

Mr. MESENBOURG. That’s true.

Mr. MCHENRY. That kind of thing. So are checks written to partnership groups?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No. The partnership group will put in a proposal, let’s say, to do a series——

Mr. MCHENRY. So no money is exchanged?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No money is exchanged.

Mr. MCHENRY. Materials and things of that sort would be.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. We will do all of the acquisitions associated with that, and we will track and monitor the disbursement of

funds.

Mr. MCHENRY. One of GAO’s recommendations was to document

and audit in-kind contributions to the partnership programs. Has

than been implemented? Do you have a program to implement

that?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. Every in-kind payment we made, we will

have a disbursement log and a process that will track all of those.

Mr. MCHENRY. You described the standard products that you

would be given in kind; and it’s more of basic advertising with materials, is that correct?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Typically, promotional materials to support

the census.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. So you have a mechanism to ensure that taxpayer dollars—there will be an audit trail, there will be a trail to

follow the disbursement of products and goods.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes, sir.

Mr. MCHENRY. Will there be a metric to determine the effectiveness of these funds? And I know it’s difficult in the process to determine whether or not this banner is effective, but, for 2020, will

we be able to look back and say that, you know, these dollars were

spent effectively, or we should do more of this rather than that? Is

there a metric to determine effectiveness?

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Mr. MESENBOURG. There’s not a direct metric to do this. But I

suppose I should put this in some context. In total, we will probably be expending something like about $18 million on these kind

of initiatives, and that’s out of about almost $270 million.

Mr. MCHENRY. You said $8 million?

Mr. MESENBOURG. $18 million, out of a total of about $270 million. I think the real assessment for 2010 with the Partnership Program is going to be did we improve the mail-back response rates

in these hard-to-count areas.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Now, determining this effectiveness, Mr.

Goldenkoff, have you judged or have you done any analysis on the

metrics to judge the effectiveness of those partnership funds?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Our concern is that the Bureau has not done

a good job of that, that the Bureau has not developed outcome

measures. Many of the measures are more input measures—number of partnerships, for example, number of agreements—and that’s

certainly a concern of ours.

Other things—I mean, certainly response rate is one thing that

can be looked at, cost-in-progress milestones. Are the milestones

being met? Are delivery dates being met? Satisfaction of partners,

that’s another outcome measure that can be looked at. We haven’t

done any intense research into this. These are just more options for

the Bureau’s consideration. But our concern is that the Bureau

doesn’t seem to be there yet.

Mr. MCHENRY. Are there written guidelines for participation as

partners?

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Criteria for making decisions?

Mr. MCHENRY. Yes.

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. No. As Mr. Mesenbourg said, there are some

general guidelines on who the Bureau should be participating with,

outreach into the community, that sort of thing. But, again, our

concern is that there is no criteria that is fully documented, transparent, clearly defined, and consistently applied.

The issue here is that if you use data from the 2000 census,

there are 140,000 partnership agreements. The Census Bureau

gives a lot of latitude to its regional offices and on down the partnership specialists making those decisions. A lot of these people are

temporary employees. They don’t have the big picture view. So it

may appear to make sense. So the very local level may be inconsistent with the goals and values of the Census Bureau. So it

would certainly be helpful for making these decisions to have something that was much more clearly defined certainly, not only who

the Bureau can partner with but who they shouldn’t partner with.

And it’s not just obvious decisions, organizations that might be

corrupt, but law enforcement organizations probably would not

make a good partner for the Census Bureau, because it could raise

concerns among certain communities using this data.

Mr. MCHENRY. Certainly.

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. And that might not be apparent when it’s so

decentralized like that.

Mr. MCHENRY. Mr. Mesenbourg, this is not new what Mr.

Goldenkoff is saying. This has certainly been written and shared

with you. Do you have some elements that address this?

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Mr. MESENBOURG. We will commit to being more transparent in

terms of what our criteria are going to be. We will actually put

them to paper.

But I think it is——

Mr. MCHENRY. Is it currently not to paper?

Mr. MESENBOURG. It is on paper, but we will document it a little

bit more fully and share that with you.

I think, though, as GAO states, we do leave a lot of discretion

to the local partnership people; and I think that’s appropriate. A

key part of our message, people in the local community know what

the challenges are in those local communities, not us here at the

Census Bureau headquarters. And we will have partnerships, in a

sense, with law enforcement organizations, in that sheriffs and police will put out a message that it is safe to fill your form out, that

it’s not going to be turned over to local enforcement.

So that is often part of the complete count committee structure,

that they may bring in some of the local sheriffs department, but

it’s all in promotional, and the whole message there is it’s safe to

fill out your census form.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Well, if you could share that with us, we

would certainly appreciate it. And obviously we want to make sure

there are some metrics for determining effectiveness.

Mr. MESENBOURG. I would agree with that. We will commit to

that.

Mr. MCHENRY. And overall criteria for partnership groups. My

colleague, Mr. Chaffetz, had questions about these groups; and certain groups in particular, a number of colleagues have had questions about their participation as partners.

I know we’ve asked this question before, but, obviously, there’s

an FBI background check for every person you hire even on a temporary basis.

Mr. MESENBOURG. That’s correct, and fingerprinting.

Mr. MCHENRY. Does that mean that convicted felons cannot participate?

Mr. MESENBOURG. That’s true.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Therefore, the question then arises, do you

have that same type of criteria for partners and for partner groups

in that if they have a history of problems—problems with law enforcement, overall problems like that—that you would be able to

say ‘‘no’’ to them?

Mr. MESENBOURG. No.

Mr. MCHENRY. You don’t have that.

Mr. MESENBOURG. No, we don’t have that criteria, nor do I think

that the Census Bureau should be involved in investigating organizations and the members of their organizations.

Mr. MCHENRY. That absolutely is—I certainly respect you, but

what you just said is absolutely ridiculous. You are giving the official stamp of approval that they are a partner for the 2010 census,

at which point they could have a complete reckless disregard for

the law and their whole board of directors could be convicted felons, which you would not hire them, but you’ve been able to give

them the stamp of approval that they’re an official partner.

I think it would be reasonable to have a certain level of criteria.

And I understand the vast number of partners you’re going to

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have. I’m not saying anything elaborate. I’m just saying a basic

baseline check that when you basically put your arm around them

and say ‘‘you’re our partner,’’ that they’re not going to do things

that cause problems on census day 2010.

Mr. MESENBOURG. I would agree with that assessment. We do

not want to partner with groups that will cause problems on census

day. I was reacting, Congressman, to your question that we somehow should be knowledgeable about all the members of all of these

very diverse organizations; and, A, we don’t have the capability,

nor do I think that we should. We should do a scan in terms of how

this organization is perceived in the local community and whether

they can be effective or they will be ineffective in the local community.

Mr. MCHENRY. I think that’s what I’m asking.

Mr. MESENBOURG. OK.

Mr. MCHENRY. Some of my colleagues have concerns about specific groups. I have a general concern that we have good partners

that are upstanding. And I know it’s the Bureau’s intent to do that,

but I think it’s the intent of Congress for you to have some level

of standard for participants. And I’m not saying that you have to

do an elaborate search on every volunteer that’s associated with

every group—the T-ball team, the city council, or anything else.

Heck, that’s not reasonable. But, at the same point, you need to

have some baseline on a background on the group. I think that is

reasonable.

Mr. MESENBOURG. OK.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. McHenry.

Our friend from the District of Columbia has joined us, Ms. Norton; and you are recognized for questioning.

Ms. NORTON. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, my buddy, for this

hearing, but I’m more inclined to say, what possessed you to hold

such an important hearing on Monday when nobody but Eleanor

and a few other souls would be here? This is the most important

issue facing the census.

And I apologize to the witnesses. I had intended to be here the

full time. I was speaking in the city. At least I could have been

here. But I certainly wanted to come to hear what I could.

I am so pleased that the President put $1 billion in the stimulus

package to cease the slow walking of the census that almost guaranteed an undercount. The census was stolen before it started. And

it seems to me that those who speak about the Constitution ought

to bear in mind that the first thing that the framers thought you

ought to do is find out who is here.

And everybody here came as an immigrant, or virtually everybody, and they are aware that if government doesn’t know who’s

there, government doesn’t know anything. So I was very concerned.

I am Chair of the subcommittee that is now, hurriedly, trying to

find office space all around the country; and this is very difficult

office space to find because this is short-term office space. So I am

handling GSA, who says it’s different, but these folks need some

place to rent, even for a couple of years. So we’ve been set back in

many ways.

What I was most concerned about is how late lots of things are.

This should be a 10-year funding and preparation matter. I am

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pleased that the census does update itself so that in some ways you

get a sense of where the country is. I certainly hope that in updating yourselves you do a better job than what some large cities

found.

This city, for example, the Nation’s Capital, found new housing bursting out all over, people moving in with a $5,000 homebuyer

credit that nobody else in the country had, and the census was continuing to count us losing population. You know, there are some

things that common sense will tell you is not the case.

When then Mayor Anthony Williams pressed the case, efficiently,

an updated census was done to show that the Nation’s Capital, in

fact, is growing. Very, very bothersome, since these are supposed

to be statistical experts and since the updating is supposed to help

us count better.

I understand—and, indeed, would agree with my good friend

from California about the independent status. Indeed, I felt in company with those who somehow—needed the census in the White

House. Watch what you ask for. The more independent the census

is, the better off we are. I’m not sure, it would be interesting to

trace how that would be, putting it in a department, since this,

above all, is a part of the government which you do not want people questioning based on their political predilections.

I have great respect for the professionalism of the civil servants

in the census. That’s one of the reasons why I was chagrined when

the census had a hard time counting what really are a few people;

the District is about 600,000 people. It made me wonder, what

would happen if this were New York, where I lived for a good part

of my life—Washingtonian—though I did find that where I lived,

on 144th and Amsterdam, is among those with the dark spots here.

Why should I be surprised?

But that makes the undercount really the only issue, people who

fear to be counted, aren’t used to being counted, aren’t as well educated as some other parts of the country. And now we have a terrible structural change in our economy. People are having to move

in with other people just to survive. I hope the census is making

adjustments for the fact that we don’t even—if people are having

to double up and triple up.

I really feel for the undercounted Latinos. There has been a real

witch hunt conducted for many years. That’s how Latinos perceive

it. So that we found it was having an effect on people who are perfectly legal.

It’s very easy to misread Members of Congress who have some

power who seem to go after immigrants. And this cannot possibly

help the census, who have been slow to get money—the President

is trying to make up for it, and you are left with having to do a

real count, or you’re going to hear from a lot of us.

I’ve got to ask you about the confusion on race. Now, this morning’s Washington Post, ‘‘Multiracial Peoples to Be Counted in a

New Way.’’ And my question really goes to how much the census

coordinates with other agencies.

There is good reason for localities to want to know something

more about people’s racial identity, but I wonder if you understand

what this could produce. The racists who decided that if you had

one drop of Black blood you were Black at least did us a favor, unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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like those in the Caribbean, who then decided to subdivide themselves on how much of various ethnic blood they had in them still

suffer from that. If you go to Haiti and virtually every part of the

Caribbean, you see not only the Black-White caste system, you see

the Black, not quite Black, not quite White. You have castes within

castes. It’s a terrible, terrible problem. So I know the people who

said one drop didn’t think they were doing us any favor, but in a

real sense they did. Now we are becoming a multiracial country.

But whether people know what that means is something the Census Bureau, being scientific, better watch out for.

During the worst days of segregation, one of the most pitiful,

pitiful parts of the Black community was how many people wanted

to reach for other kinds of ethnicity that they said were part of

theirs.

The Washington Post cites Barack Obama as reflecting what

we’re talking about. It doesn’t reflect it at all. It reflects the evolution of a country now led by a President born of a White Kansas

mother, a Black Kenyan father. The man’s Black because he has

chosen his race.

By the way, he didn’t have any choice. There are people who

would have a choice. It seems to me they ought to be able to choose

their race, too. But the notion that I’m going to choose eenie,

meenie, miny, mo—and my grandmother always told me that there

was this Indian and that White man and this Mexican, so why

shouldn’t I claim them all? I’m proud of all of them, don’t know a

one of them.

The confusion that is going to have no lineage, no understanding,

word of mouth. So we had these five racial categories—American

Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, or Hispanic,

non-Hispanic, Black or non-Hispanic White. Now the school system

may want to know some more information, but I need to know

what the census wants to know.

For example, they found that, in Hispanics, one of the most multiracial people in the world can get very confused. And then when

they mix in and decide that they will call themselves White, then

the school system doesn’t really know if it’s dealing with a person

from a family that doesn’t speak English or not. So I can understand why the school system may want to know this.

So the Education Department is saying, ‘‘hey, look, different

strokes for different folks.’’ We’re going to give flexibility, new

rules. We’re going to give States flexibility in these existing racial

and ethnic categories of No Child Left Behind, creating a double

coding for certain students.

I don’t object to that. But if you do not—if we go into the notion

of asking people, for census purposes particularly, to ferret out

their lineages, I am beginning to wonder what you are. None of us

are completely African. We are proud to be called African American. And you can’t even tell who we are by looking at us. Who people say they are is the first important thing. There may be subgroups of information that would be helpful, such as what their immediate family, immediate mother and father was, so you have

some sense of whether you are talking about first generation or

not.

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And I am the first to concede that States need different information based on their population, but I need to know what the census

is doing and what it says to people as they go and say, you know,

‘‘tell us what you are.’’ And, of course, you can say anything you

want to. That is who you are. I don’t think anyone else should be

able to describe you—certainly not the way the southerners decided

to describe Africans who were here, or people who had very little

African blood.

But I need to know whether we are all now mixed up about this

as well and how you intend to deal with this. Let it all hang out.

Anything that you said you were anywhere back in your lineage,

just claim that and we will know who you are.

Yes, sir.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Mesenbourg.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Thank you.

First of all, in terms of how we’re going to collect data, we’re

going to collect data on two things: Ethnicity, Hispanic, non-Hispanic. So Hispanic is actually not viewed as a race. It’s viewed as

an ethnicity. So the question will ask for every person, and as you

rightfully say, this is self-designation. So it’s how people view

themselves.

So the first question, we’ll say, is person one of Hispanic, Latino

or Spanish origin? No. And then, yes, they will ask a little bit

about their ancestry—Mexican, Puerto Rican, and so on. So that is

the question that identifies Hispanic origin.

The next question——

Ms. NORTON. Do they then ask them whether they are Black or

White?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. So that’s question 8 of the 10 questions

we’re going to ask about every individual.

Question 9 will say, what is person one’s race? Mark one or more

boxes. So they can mark more than one box, but it’s White, Black,

African American, and American Indian or Alaskan native. And

then there are breakouts of Asian, Asian Indian. All of these boxes

or categories are established by the Office of Management and

Budget, and we are following what those guidelines are on race and

ethnicity. But it’s up to the individual to characterize themselves

of Hispanic or non-Hispanic origin, and then there is the race question.

Ms. NORTON. So this is the same categorization you used in the

last census?

Mr. MESENBOURG. This is basically the same characterization.

There was some research done to better ask some of the components and some of the categories, and we have implemented that.

And we will be doing additional testing in our experimental program in 2010 to refine some of the concepts and definitions.

Ms. NORTON. How about the agencies? I was confused as to how

the Education Department, does it collect this data from, where

they say, you know—have this flexibility?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The race and ethnic categories are established

by the Office of Management and Budget, so all Federal agencies

should be following the——

Ms. NORTON. So what does this story in the Post mean? According to the story in the Post, ‘‘The rules will give States flexibility

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to leave existing racial and ethnic categories for No Child Left Behind, creating a double coding for certain students.’’ A student may

be counted as Black for some purposes and Hispanic for others.

Bless him.

Mr. MESENBOURG. I think that’s referring to State. So States and

localities——

Ms. NORTON. But this is the new rules for the Department of

Education. So they’re on their own on that, in other words?

Mr. MESENBOURG. I really don’t know. I don’t know what they’re

planning to do.

Ms. NORTON. So you don’t coordinate what agencies do. You

speak only for the census, and that’s how you count.

Mr. MESENBOURG. The Office of Management and Budget has

oversight responsibilities in terms of what Federal agencies are

doing. So Education should have worked with OMB on the race and

ethnicity standard.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mrs. Norton.

Wow, what a far-reaching, wide breadth of questioning, consistent with your background as professor and lecturer. And we appreciate your participation today.

And, as you mentioned earlier, why would we have this on a day

like this? It’s because we knew that key legislators, such as yourself, would be able to be here along with the other people that are

here. So thank you so much.

Let me just wrap up on questioning here and ask, you know, the

committee has reviewed preliminary plans for spending stimulus

money on the Communications Contract. Mr. Tarakajian, you have

$10 million allocated for local buys in the Black and Caribbean

markets; yet you have $13 million allocated for the Hispanic and

Asian markets. Given the historical undercounts in the Black and

Caribbean population, would you please explain the disparity in

funding allotments?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. The stimulus money has to be looked at in conjunction with the base plan money that is allocated by audience.

So if you look at the entire $312 million, what we are planning to

plan against is $39 million for Hispanic, $36 million for the Black

audience and approximately $27 million for the Asian audience.

And I stress that these are planned at this point in time; we

have not put pencil to paper to complete the plans with the addition of the stimulus money as of yet. Once we do that we will absolutely take a look at how these numbers work and whether we believe, and our subcontractors believe, that this is the correct allocation, but this is a starting point.

Mr. CLAY. OK. A starting point is fine. I just wanted to make you

aware that, historically, the Asian population has been overcounted. So I was kind of curious as to why we would direct so

many resources to that population.

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. The reason for adding resources to the Asian

population is really from the planning process that we have been

through so far. We have asked all of our subcontractors to come up

with a list of what they would do if and when there were additional

moneys that were available to be spent against their audience. And

one of the things that our Asian subcontractor, the IW Group,

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noted was that they wanted to expand from the existing group of

languages that they were going to run their campaign into a broader group. And adding the languages is an expensive proposition because these are small populations with very limited media outlets.

So we have started along that path. As I said, it is planned, it

is primary. We are going to take a look at what those plans look

like and then come back with a final recommendation.

Mr. CLAY. Be sensitive to hard-to-reach and hard-to-count.

Thank you.

Mr. Mesenbourg, would the Bureau be willing—we made references to these maps. Let me ask you, would the Bureau be willing to be create maps like this for Members, representing traditionally hard-to-count constituents for all Members of Congress in an

effort to better partner with the Bureau on reducing the count?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Certainly, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you so much.

And I will ask—let me recognize Mr. McHenry because he wants

to finish up, too. Mr. McHenry will be recognized for questions.

Mr. MCHENRY. I certainly appreciate it.

Mr. Mesenbourg, what do you expect out of the Partnership Program and what does the Bureau expect the partners to—you know,

the role they are supposed to play.

Mr. MESENBOURG. The bottom line what I expect out of the Partnership Program is an improved mail response rate, especially in

the hard-to-count areas. That is really going to be the test of how

effective we have been. We are looking for partners to basically

cover the landscape in terms of representation and reach in the

local communities, and that could involve government. So we will

certainly be dealing with State and local governments, we will be

working with mayors, both of cities and of towns, we will be dealing with the entire education community, both K through 12, which

will be the focus of the census in schools, as well as postsecondary.

Mr. MCHENRY. And what do you think the partners expect out

of it?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, part of our message to the partners is,

the census is inclusive, the census is important, it is going to be

used for legislative representation, and it is going to be used for

Federal funds distribution, over $300 billion a year. Most of the

partners get that there is a real stake in counting everyone, that

it affects them both from a political perspective, as well as the

kinds of funding that are going to flow into the local community.

Mr. MCHENRY. Now, there have been a lot of reports about concerns to the faltering economy and that the tough economic times

we are facing will make the 2010 census more difficult, since people are losing their homes and their jobs and may be in the process

of moving or living with other people, and just moving to different

locations, that it might be harder to find and enumerate these people.

What are the Bureau’s plans to address this concern? I know it

is a very new concern. But if you could, touch on what your plans

are and perhaps where you are in the planning process.

Mr. MESENBOURG. OK. I would be glad to.

Well, I think the degree of the problem is a new problem. So we

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ing operation. So that is the first key production activity in the census where we are going to walk every block in the United States

and validate and update the addresses. So the first critical step is

to make sure we have a complete and comprehensive address list.

At the same time we are rolling out our Partnership Program.

And as I said, we will be going from about 680 partnership specialists; we will be increasing that by 2,000. A key part of that job is

to get into the local communities, talk to the people in the communities and find out the severity of some of these programs. They

can help a lot in that activity.

Then we need to really get trusted voices in the community to

inform and educate people that if you are doubling up with somebody, it is safe to respond and that you should be listed on that

census form. So all of this will be part of the messaging.

But we think a key part of that is to have those trusted voices

in the community making that message. We will be doing it

through advertising and through our own promotional materials,

but we really think the local minister can be a lot more effective

and convincing.

Mr. MCHENRY. Has this been addressed and added to the integrated communications plan?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. This is one of the challenges that we are

facing when we look at the clusters of the population.

One of the variables is the amount of occupied housing in the

area, and as that becomes—as that number decreases, we know we

have an additional problem that we need to address.

Mr. MCHENRY. And Mr. Tarakajian, has that been a part of your

process in updating the plan?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Yes. We have a budget line item in the plan

called rapid response. And what that is designed to do is, as we

start to get mail returned and we see what areas of the country

or markets are lagging in terms of return, we can then allocate

moneys to those areas to help bolster return. And our plan was to

put an additional $2 million of the stimulus funding in the rapid

response in response to this issue that you point out.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK.

Now, Mr. Mesenbourg, how many partners, your partners, how

many employees do you think they will help produce for you, temporary workers and enumerators?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, they are not going to provide really any

temporary workers for us. What they will provide is a much greater reach in getting the message out to people. So I can give you

a couple examples of that.

In the business community, one of the areas that we will be

reaching out to are the utility companies that basically reach everyone in a locality. So one of the things that they have done in

the past, and we will be asking them to do again, is to put messages on their statements, on their envelopes, encouraging everyone that gets one of those utility bills, whether telephone or heating bill and so on, to participate in the census.

The last time we were very successful with big corporations such

as Wal-Mart and Target to actually do promotions in their stores

and to provide assistance centers if they have the space available.

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So we will be doing a whole host of things like that. So it is primarily helping us reach the hard-to-count and getting the appropriate message out to them.

Mr. MCHENRY. Is there any element of the Partnership Program

to help produce enumerators?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The partners, many of them, will agree to provide space for recruiting. They actually won’t be doing hiring, but

they will donate space and we will have a Census Bureau employee

there taking applications for the jobs. And after we hire people

they will be providing sites that we can actually do training on.

Mr. MCHENRY. Now, for the program to hire enumerators for

areas that have been traditionally hard to count or a higher nonresponse rate technically, would it be engaging those community

partners to help produce folks in the neighborhood or folks in the

community to be enumerators? Is that part of the program?

Mr. MESENBOURG. They can assist with the recruiting process.

Typically, probably where they will be more useful is going into the

local communities as we are starting to hire additional partnership

specialists and partnership assistance. Those local communities can

provide us the names of people that they think are trusted voices

in the community and are in the market for the job.

They will have to go through the interview process and the testing process like everyone else.

Mr. MCHENRY. Now, with the additional folks that you are hiring

for the partnership groups, is there a way to verify the efforts and

the work that they are doing in the community? Do you have

metrics for that?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Certainly.

Well, first, they will have to go through all the appropriate clearances to make sure that they are OK. Each one of them, as they

make commitments—well, they will have goals in terms of what

they are supposed to do; and then they will enter those commitments in this integrated partnership database, and both the regional staff and headquarters staff will be monitoring that process.

Mr. MCHENRY. As a part of the 2010 advertising effort in communications, broader communication efforts, are there plans for the

Bureau to visit editorial boards and newspapers?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Certainly. That will be a part of our outreach

to the media.

Mr. MCHENRY. Is that your understanding as well, Mr.

Tarakajian?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. Yes. In fact, our subcontractor, Weber

Shandwick, which is a public relations company, is assisting the

Bureau in that effort.

Mr. MCHENRY. And what is the purpose of these meetings?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. It is really to get the message of the census out

there, make sure that there is an integrated message, that everybody is on point and that it happens at the point in time when it

is most beneficial to the communications effort.

So it is an overall integrated approach.

Mr. MCHENRY. So it is a message of participation?

Mr. TARAKAJIAN. It would vary depending upon what the particular medium is. But, yes, it would be primarily a participation message. It could be, in its early phases, an awareness message.

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Mr. MCHENRY. OK. An awareness or participation; is that correct, Mr. Mesenbourg?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes, sir—and importance, why it is important

to participate.

Mr. MCHENRY. I certainly appreciate it. I appreciate your testimony today, Mr. Mesenbourg.

I know I had some tough, direct questions from the beginning because we do want participation in transparency in this process. But

I do thank you for your leadership of a very challenging and large

government program that is very important to all Americans.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Ms. Watson is recognized.

Ms. WATSON. I want to go quickly because I do know you have

other places you need to be to carry on the focus of the census.

Thank you for recognizing me. And I want to address this in followup with Ms. Cumberbatch.

I am looking at this map of New York, and I am kind of appalled.

Tell me what you have been able—the kind of contact you have

been able to have. Do you have the resources to do the job? And

do you think your position should be a permanent position? And

can you respond, because I am really concerned about this area

here on this map that—I think all of you have a copy—and the fact

that in 2010 we still think there will be an undercount.

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. First, let me start off by saying I am an employee of the city of New York, so my position is not a federally

funded position. It is a decision that has been made by the mayor

of the city of New York that this is such an important endeavor

that impacts the city that it is important to have someone as a coordinator.

My office doesn’t have a standing budget, so what I am doing is

getting staff on loan from other city agencies who have connections

in different neighborhoods.

Ms. WATSON. I am just asking, can you propose a budget to the

Census Bureau?

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Absolutely. And I think one of the things

that has to happen is that since my office was created just for the

2010 census, it needs to be at local levels, where there are hardto-count communities, a process where perhaps there is a permanent person or small office that starts dealing with these issues or

locality way in advance of the actual census.

So, for example, one of the communities there is central Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy. But someone could have been in place at the local

level to start cultivating those relationships far in advance of the

census to start really penetrating.

So in many respects it takes a huge effort in a very short period

of time to turn around those low response rates. Now, perhaps if

resources had been made available much—early on, 5 years ago, 6

years ago, knowing that there was a low response rate in 2000 and

a low response rate in 1990, we would be in a different place in

terms of turning around some of those communities.

So, yes, I think there needs to be a Federal commitment at the

local level to those areas in terms of staffing, not just for the purpose of the census when it comes up in terms of a Partnership ProVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:45 Dec 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\57216.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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gram now, because partners are being hired now for censuses next

year. But if people were in place a few years before to start making

those relationships and start really penetrating those areas, I think

we would really be in a different place.

Ms. WATSON. Just to followup, do you think this ought to be a

local position within the New York area or should it be a Federal

position; or should they recommend to the local, the regional, that

we make this a permanent position.

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. I think it should be a local position within

the city government or whatever governing locality rules in that

particular area. Because at the end of the day the results impact

that area most, that government executive most, in terms of Federal funding. So there is no input until close to the census in terms

of more of an advisory input. There is no ongoing input into what

outreach needs to happen for that locality to get a higher count and

a full and accurate count.

Ms. WATSON. Well, you know, New York is the city that is known

around the globe. When people come to the United States, they

come to New York; and we are—the second stop is to get to my district, Hollywood.

But I would think this being the largest population and probably

the most well-known place, you should have the best count and the

resources. And they need to be appropriated, as you are saying,

long before we get to the actual taking of the census. And so I am

hoping that you are conveying this in a proposal to the Census Bureau so you can get the proper resources, so this famous and well

known city around this globe will have the proper governmental

support in program, will have the proper count in terms of positions in this government and the proper resources to make it effective.

So I would hope that you would present a proposal——

Ms. CUMBERBATCH. Absolutely.

Ms. WATSON [continuing]. To the Census Bureau. Thank you

very much.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know that we are way over

time.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Watson, for that questioning.

And, Ms. Norton, we are going to let you have the final say.

Ms. NORTON. I am sure there is no place that the chairman has

to be that is more important than chairing this.

Mr. CLAY. You are absolutely correct.

Ms. NORTON. What would I do without the chairman to kid?

But I did want to ask Mr. Mesenbourg one last question. Mr.

Mesenbourg, I looked at page 3 of your testimony, and I tried to

do some fast arithmetic. I don’t know how to judge the total in the

original contract of $212 million. The reason I look at it is because,

to the chagrin of all of us, the written word is out of fashion. More

people knew about the D.C. Voting rights simply by what is on the

Colbert Report than anything read or any scholarly thing that

might be coming out of my mouth. So I think we have to assume

that, educated and not, people rely on the media; it is very dangerous, but that is the way it is. Indeed, when the language has

now been reduced to ‘‘twitters,’’ you had better be working on one.

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So I looked at where I think most people get whatever information they get. So I have no judgment to make of $212 million. It

looks right to me, but who am I since it is the original communications contract, the whole contract. So that is print and other media.

What is your whole budget, sir?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Well, actually the $212 million was the original contract. Thanks to the stimulus, it is $312 million.

Ms. NORTON. Wow. But again, I don’t know how to judge that either, so I will just go on to hard-to-reach. If it is hard-to-reach people who graduated from college with information, I am assuming

it will be even harder to reach the hard-to-reach. $170 is directed

to paid advertising, so I looked at that figure. So that means $42

goes off the top to somebody because it is not directed to the content.

Then, if you continue to count, you get to 52, the mass communications component to reach all persons who consume media in

English regardless of race or ethnicity. I don’t even know what that

means, because we again, much to my chagrin, live in tribes, you

know people communicate through Hispanic stations, they are

Black and they speak only English, but they don’t listen to anything except Black stations. Too bad, but again I am giving you the

way I believe it is.

So OK, for all of these people, and this leaves the impression

that it is across the board, so it said ‘‘all of those,’’ regardless of

race or ethnicity. So it would mean that if you listen to an all-news

station—or maybe that isn’t what you mean, regardless of race or

ethnicity as opposed to breaking that down further. Then it says

$52 million.

So we start with $212 million and $52 million of the total is

planned for media buys. What in the world are you doing with the

rest of the money? The way I counted, you start with $91 for direct

media buys, and that looks like it is print as well as forms of media

that people actually use to get information, regretfully. Then $52

million is for direct media buys. And I simply have to ask you

how—one, justify the total figure for reaching the hard-to-reach;

and, two, where will these media buys occur in order to reach people where they listen to information or read information?

Mr. MESENBOURG. I apologize. I think my written testimony contributed to the confusion, so maybe I can take a moment to try to

clarify.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

Mr. MESENBOURG. So the $312 million is the total contract.

Ms. NORTON. Out of the total budget of——

Mr. MESENBOURG. Out of—the entire life cycle is between $14

billion and $15 billion.

Ms. NORTON. So how did you arrive at $312 million out of $14

billion or $15 billion budget for media buys?

Mr. MESENBOURG. The $14 billion to $15 billion is across the 10-

year life cycle of the census.

So, in 2009, we had a budget of about $2.7 billion, and we are

going to be getting an additional $4 billion in 2010. And, of course,

we have the stimulus funding. So in terms of content, we think this

is what we need to do the advertising.

105

In inflated terms, this is a greater budget than we had in the

2000 budget.

Ms. NORTON. What was the budget in the 2000 census?

Mr. MESENBOURG. $262.

So we are at $312 right now, and so of the $312, $258 million

will be spent on paid media. That includes production, labor and

so on.

Ms. NORTON. Of the $312——

Mr. MESENBOURG. $258 million is directed toward paid media,

and that includes production and labor in terms of creating the

content. So in terms of our actual advertising buys, it is $145 million, and $62–$63 million—these are preliminary estimates—will

be directed toward the national market.

The national market—what I meant to explain there is, if you

consume media in English, then the national campaign will reach

you——

Ms. NORTON. Well, how is that broken down?

Mr. MESENBOURG. It is going to—the national campaign is going

to be national, so it is aimed at people that consume their media

in English, regardless of their race or their ethnicity.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Mesenbourg, OK.

So you mean there is a national and a local?

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. And the local is about $83 million. And

that is aimed at reaching ethnic local audiences in the right media,

whether TV, radio, print, newspapers, magazines, but it is going to

be very targeted.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask you to get to the chairman of this subcommittee a breakdown, as finely as you can, of how that media

buy.

I opine on something I don’t know, but I do believe that the best

way to reach the—to disabuse people that the government is coming after you when the Census Bureau comes is to have a friendly

voice—not from the census, if I may say so—some friendly community voice that speaks the language or speaks the lingo and can

speak credibly with the community.

Now, I regret this, but these communities are divided. And listen, this is maybe the decline and fall of America, but when you

have everybody listening to only what they want to hear and to

voices, you wonder how you are going to keep together a country.

But that is how it is.

So it is broken down in terms of class, it is certainly broken down

in terms of race. And, of course, the hardest to reach and, it seems

to me, deserved a disproportionate amount of the money are those

who speak another language, especially Spanish. And that is where

I fear the greatest undercount among the most rapidly growing

part of our population.

I think that we already have scared the bejesus out of many of

the legal Hispanics who have been here for a long time and just

don’t want to have anything to do with the government.

So I believe that you would guide the subcommittee to have confidence in what you are doing with your media buys as between

print, and broken down even in the print and other media, if we

could have a further breakdown from you, sir.

Mr. MESENBOURG. Certainly.

106

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Ms. Norton. And, as usual, she

got the last word.

That concludes this hearing, and there will be plenty to follow.

Hearing adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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